This document describes results from the 2021 global OHI assessment. This is mostly an internal document to explore and check results. It also creates the figures used on the website and in other documents.
Primary dataset
These data are the OHI scores for the eez regions of 220 countries and territories from 2012 to 2021.
Region 0 is the global average scores, which are calculated using an area-weighted average of the region scores (status, likely future state, and score).
OHI scores
Global summary
This section describes global patterns in index and goal scores. The overall global score was 70.22.
Alternative color scale
Average global performance of the 10 goals.
Flower plots for each region can be downloaded from here

Country summary
Country index scores for 2021. Maps describing goal and index scores can be downloaded from here.

Distribution of country index scores. The median index score among countries was 69.42.

The regions with index scores of 80 or greater are:
| Macquarie Island |
93.99 |
| Howland Island and Baker Island |
89.89 |
| Ile Europa |
85.76 |
| Sint Maarten |
85.37 |
| Jarvis Island |
83.94 |
| Seychelles |
83.31 |
| Saba |
81.89 |
| New Zealand |
81.78 |
| Turks and Caicos Islands |
81.62 |
| Mayotte |
81.45 |
| South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands |
81.12 |
| Bonaire |
80.36 |
| Heard and McDonald Islands |
80.28 |
The regions with index scores of 60 or less are:
| Bosnia and Herzegovina |
59.98 |
| Ukraine |
59.90 |
| Republique du Congo |
59.78 |
| Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) |
59.16 |
| Haiti |
59.11 |
| Syria |
58.49 |
| Tristan da Cunha |
57.63 |
| Saint Helena |
56.88 |
| Israel |
56.76 |
| Falkland Islands |
56.18 |
| Eritrea |
55.67 |
| Libya |
55.16 |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo |
54.23 |
| Sudan |
52.88 |
| Liberia |
51.90 |
| Ivory Coast |
49.14 |
Country scores across scenario year
Carpet plot figure (download as high resolution png) providing an overview of the scores from the 2021 assessment. Each row represents a region, the main groupings represent goals, and within each goal there are 7 years of data. Black regions indicate no data.

Don’t try too hard to interpret the results for specific countries/goals/years!!
This plot is good for providing a quick overview of:
- What is the range of scores?
- Which goals tend to have high scores across most regions (species, habitat)
- Which goals have a lot of variation across regions (tourism & recreation, lasting special places)
- Which goals are volatile across years (natural products, tourism & recreation)
Data
This interactive table describes the index and goal scores for the regions in 2021 (or, download csv version):
OHI Trends
Trend values are slope estimates from a linear model of scores for each region/goal over the past 9 years. Positive values indicate increasing scores during the past 9 years and negative values indicate decreasing scores.
A color-coded table of trend values for each country is available here (as well as a csv file).
NOTE: Currently, these data include the livelihoods and economies goal but these results should be viewed sceptically because these data were last updated for the 2013 assessment. Many other goals contain components with poor data resolution (i.e., infrequently, or never, measured over time).
Global summary
The following table provides the global scores (eez area weighted average of region scores) for the Index and goals/subgoals for all years.
Table View
| Index |
69.62 |
70.21 |
70.60 |
70.84 |
70.87 |
70.64 |
70.58 |
70.27 |
70.23 |
70.22 |
| Artisanal opportunities |
75.09 |
75.58 |
76.02 |
76.01 |
75.25 |
74.45 |
74.46 |
74.18 |
74.82 |
74.20 |
| Species condition (subgoal) |
79.59 |
79.29 |
78.99 |
78.69 |
78.40 |
78.10 |
77.80 |
77.51 |
77.22 |
77.20 |
| Biodiversity |
81.61 |
81.48 |
81.32 |
81.34 |
81.33 |
81.14 |
80.92 |
80.69 |
80.39 |
80.44 |
| Habitat (subgoal) |
83.63 |
83.67 |
83.66 |
83.98 |
84.27 |
84.18 |
84.04 |
83.87 |
83.57 |
83.68 |
| Coastal protection |
82.55 |
82.50 |
82.56 |
82.78 |
82.70 |
82.20 |
81.88 |
81.63 |
81.69 |
81.84 |
| Carbon storage |
77.79 |
77.79 |
77.78 |
77.79 |
77.80 |
77.80 |
77.80 |
77.82 |
77.82 |
77.80 |
| Clean water |
67.68 |
67.61 |
68.50 |
68.77 |
69.15 |
69.26 |
69.40 |
69.00 |
69.20 |
70.19 |
| Fisheries (subgoal) |
53.71 |
54.37 |
54.90 |
54.82 |
54.08 |
53.75 |
53.36 |
53.50 |
53.54 |
53.36 |
| Food provision |
50.59 |
51.07 |
51.40 |
51.13 |
50.48 |
50.20 |
49.88 |
49.87 |
49.81 |
49.69 |
| Mariculture (subgoal) |
5.52 |
5.43 |
5.44 |
5.49 |
5.62 |
5.75 |
5.87 |
5.97 |
6.07 |
6.23 |
| Iconic species (subgoal) |
63.70 |
64.57 |
64.64 |
65.06 |
64.31 |
64.18 |
65.14 |
62.52 |
60.33 |
60.22 |
| Sense of place |
59.98 |
60.37 |
60.85 |
61.21 |
61.24 |
62.05 |
63.07 |
62.13 |
60.91 |
60.96 |
| Lasting special places (subgoal) |
56.27 |
56.17 |
57.06 |
57.36 |
58.16 |
59.92 |
61.00 |
61.73 |
61.48 |
61.71 |
| Natural products |
76.43 |
76.41 |
77.73 |
78.42 |
78.33 |
77.61 |
76.36 |
75.34 |
75.99 |
75.21 |
| Tourism & recreation |
47.24 |
48.30 |
48.96 |
50.15 |
51.56 |
50.69 |
51.02 |
50.87 |
50.63 |
50.82 |
The following is a very preliminary analysis of how the global scores changed over time. Global index scores decreased by an average 0.02 points per year, with 107 regions having decreasing trends and 109 having increasing trends.
| Iconic species (subgoal) |
-0.43 |
0.0207 |
33 |
186 |
-0.52 |
0.48 |
| Species condition (subgoal) |
-0.28 |
0.0000 |
11 |
209 |
-0.32 |
0.16 |
| Natural products |
-0.20 |
0.1279 |
71 |
119 |
-0.44 |
3.09 |
| Artisanal opportunities |
-0.17 |
0.0157 |
81 |
111 |
-0.05 |
1.34 |
| Food provision |
-0.17 |
0.0021 |
86 |
127 |
-0.07 |
0.67 |
| Biodiversity |
-0.14 |
0.0000 |
29 |
189 |
-0.16 |
0.29 |
| Fisheries (subgoal) |
-0.13 |
0.0397 |
70 |
143 |
-0.14 |
0.51 |
| Coastal protection |
-0.12 |
0.0028 |
23 |
16 |
-0.01 |
0.11 |
| Carbon storage |
0.00 |
0.0114 |
25 |
11 |
0.01 |
0.03 |
| Habitat (subgoal) |
0.01 |
0.8577 |
98 |
93 |
0.00 |
0.55 |
| Index |
0.02 |
0.6979 |
108 |
107 |
0.00 |
0.35 |
| Livelihoods |
0.04 |
0.1148 |
70 |
63 |
-0.02 |
0.56 |
| Mariculture (subgoal) |
0.09 |
0.0000 |
51 |
31 |
0.15 |
0.69 |
| Sense of place |
0.15 |
0.1308 |
79 |
141 |
0.09 |
1.07 |
| Livelihoods & economies |
0.21 |
0.1195 |
141 |
34 |
0.14 |
0.48 |
| Clean water |
0.23 |
0.0005 |
149 |
71 |
0.26 |
0.58 |
| Tourism & recreation |
0.36 |
0.0066 |
136 |
54 |
0.32 |
1.32 |
| Economies |
0.38 |
0.1197 |
134 |
15 |
0.30 |
0.64 |
| Lasting special places (subgoal) |
0.74 |
0.0000 |
70 |
32 |
0.71 |
2.13 |
Country summary
The global average decreased by an average of 0.02 points per year, but there was a good deal of variation in trend among regions and goals.

The following histogram describes the distribution of trend (e.g., change in score per year) in index scores:

The 10 regions with the largest increases in index scores are:
| Pitcairn |
1.13 |
| Norfolk Island |
0.78 |
| Jamaica |
0.74 |
| Tokelau |
0.72 |
| Tonga |
0.66 |
| Papua New Guinea |
0.65 |
| South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands |
0.64 |
| Cook Islands |
0.63 |
| Iceland |
0.60 |
| Indonesia |
0.60 |
The 10 regions with the largest decreases in index scores are:
| 211 |
Crozet Islands |
-0.57 |
| 212 |
Phoenix Islands (Kiribati) |
-0.59 |
| 213 |
Syria |
-0.63 |
| 214 |
Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands of the United States |
-0.64 |
| 215 |
South Africa |
-0.69 |
| 216 |
Israel |
-0.87 |
| 217 |
Falkland Islands |
-1.04 |
| 218 |
Palau |
-1.20 |
| 219 |
Panama |
-1.30 |
| 220 |
Marshall Islands |
-1.55 |
Country change in goal
A heat map describing change in trend for country and goals:
